Takeaways

Don't:

1. Make me think! (duh)
2. Let a user spend time thinking - is that an ad or part of the site?

3 facts about real-world Web use

1. We don't read pages. We scan them.
   • Web users tend to act like sharks: They have to keep moving, or they'll die.
2. We don't make optimal choices. We satisfice.
   • “... most of the time we don't choose the best option, we choose the first reasonable option.“
3. We don't figure out how things work. We muddle through.
   • “Faced with any sort of technology, very few people take the time to read instructions.“

Krug's Laws of Usability

1. Don't make me think!
2. “It doesn't matter how many times I have to click, as long as each click is a mindless, unambiguous choice.“
3. “Get rid of half the words on each page, then get rid of half of what's left.“

Jakob Nielsen's categories of users

1. Search-dominant
   • These users will look for a search box as soon as they enter a site.
2. Link-dominant
   • These users will browse first, searching only when they have to.

The 4 questions the Home page needs to answer when I first enter a new site

1. What is this?
2. What can I do here?
3. What do they have here?
4. Why should I be here - and not somewhere else?

The Myth of the Average User

“ALL WEB USERS ARE UNIQUE AND ALL WEB USE IS BASICALLY IDIOSYNCRATIC.“

Things that diminish goodwill

Punishing me for not doing things your way.

• I should never have to think about formatting data: whether or not to put dashes in my SSN, spaces in my credit card number, or parentheses in my phone number.